Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

A Shameless Episode of Naked Self-Promotion…with Apologies

This is not even remotely related to wine, beer, spirits, bitching and griping, or any of the other things you normally read in The Pour Fool – and I humbly apologize for that…

BUT…

The photo you’ll see below is the cover art for a book entitled “Call Me Joe”, written by some guy named “Steven J Patrick” who, as it turns out, is me…which you may already know if you’ve ever seen my other Seattle P-I bloglet, “The Constant Valentine”. In it, my alter ego spins a yarn about a fictional Seattle private detective named Truman “Tru” North, a creation which has been rattling about my subconscious for over a decade but which I hesitated to use because…well, it was just too cute. “Tru North” – I mean, who am I kidding? Not only that, but he has a brother named Dewey North.

I’ll let you guess what Dewey is nicknamed…

Taken as a set, the North brothers are just too precious for words, so I doggedly refused to use Tru as a protagonist. But the silly SOB just wouldn’t go away and I finally caved. Tim Hallinan, a writer I admire greatly, has a central character named Simeon Grist (no, not kidding) and I figured that if Tim could slide by with that, I could manage Tru North.

Cover Art by, well, me.

Book Two of this character is already well underway. It’s called “Vibe” and I hope (beg, pray, beseech all the deities) to have it done by May or so. It will be noticeably better than “Call Me Joe” as I learned a lot of valuable lessons in five years of bumbling around with this thing.

CMJ deals with a former CIA sniper who’s decided, late in his career, to go shoot people for reasons of his own. It also concerns a stalled resort development, just south of Kettle Falls, Washington, which is mired in a tribal voting rights scandal, which Tru is hired to unravel. As events progress, shockingly, a series of assassinations in Europe is revealed to be linked to the resort and Tru, with considerable help from one of the resort developers and the Kettle Falls town bully, tugs at the Washington end until things start happen and a big picture emerges.

Honestly, this is not the best book I’ve ever written and I had something altogether different in my head when I started. But several other people read it and liked it a lot. I reread three or four times and finally decided that, as a first effort, I could live with it and be proud of it.

So, here it is, available roughly on March 8th or 9th on Amazon.com, in Kindle format only. If you like mysteries and own a Kindle (I understand Kindle books can be reformatted for use on other eReader platforms.)( Not that I could tell you how.) or if you know anyone who does both those things, I’d be very grateful if you would buy a copy (Only $3.99!) or tell pretty much everyone you’ve ever met about it. I’ve developed some sense of urgency about books, now, because one day my liver is going to fall out on the floor and ask Canada for political asylum and I need something to write about in my dotage…which will start any minute now.

Thanks for indulging me and I promise this won’t happen again…until “Vibe” is ready.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.